A Crazy Adventure for Sure!

My name is Tammy Gerber. I am passionate about being a disciple of Jesus. I've been married to my husband Michael for twenty years, who is my sanity in the insanity. I am a busy, sometimes crazy, mom to five children (three adopted and two biological), ages ten and under. I received my nursing degree from Purdue University in 1996, and have worked in a variety of settings, my favorite being Coronary (Heart) Intensive Care. I retired from nursing about four years ago so I can stay home with my children, giving them the heart care they need. I live in the Midwest, where I grew up. I love the quiet and calm of living in the country, and I love that my children have plenty of room to run.

I have always loved to research and to write. The good news is God has given me a lot to write about! My husband and I have always prayed that God would make our lives an adventure... and God did not disappoint!

God has blown the lid off the tidy little box I had Him in. Sixteen years of infertility, three miscarriages, three adoptions, two surprise pregnancies, a child with autism, and two children with life-threatening food allergies are some of the things God used to get rid of my box. I'm certain He has no future plans for another box or another lid.

My oldest child, my sweet son, has autism. God uses this ever-present trial to bring to the surface all that is "ugly" and broken inside me. God then is able to skim off that ugliness, leaving me a bit less broken than before. Oh the pain, and the beauty, of this process!

I didn’t know being a mom was going to be this hard. Motherhood is both the hardest thing I’ve ever done and the highest honor and joy, which makes for an interesting combination. My house is filled with unbelievable amounts of noise, laughter, chaos, tears, struggle, loss, joy, and laundry. My mind and my minivan are both crammed to capacity. I have stopped praying for God to take away the “crazy” in my life; and I’ve started praying for Him to be my Peace through the “crazy.”

No one can avoid rain. It just comes, brief and torrential, or sometimes it feels unending with deep and rising waters. Some of the rain I welcomed as part of the process of refining my faith, but some rain I didn’t think I was going to survive.

I am still recovering from two core lies I believed most of my life:

You could never be enough.

When God said “no” to my heart’s greatest desire, it meant He didn’t love me.

God is helping me to untangle, redeem, and heal the trail of devastation those two lives brought to my life. My desire is to come alongside women who have believed these same lies. I also want to teach and encourage not only how to survive, but to thrive, when God says “no” to their heart’s greatest desires. A very painful, but life-giving, journey.

I am in the process of learning how to be a “rain dancer.” Sometimes it takes rain for a woman’s parched and cracked soul to become soft and pliable, to reach the full potential that God has always dreamed for her, and that was always meant for her. When that part of a woman’s soul is awakened by Jesus Christ, I believe she becomes an unstoppable force. Most days, I am now dancing in the rain instead of drowning in the rain, and that is my prayer for you as well.

I can’t say yet that I invite the rain to come. But I see the transforming work the rain has done on my heart. My relationship with Jesus and with those I love most is forever changed. And for that I am grateful.

What I’m passionate about:Orphans, woman battling infertility, adoptive moms, moms of kids with special needs, lonely people, and women who are exhausted by perfectionism and the endless expectations of themselves and others.

Some things I love: dates with my husband, anywhere on a mountain, running in my very long lane with my worship music blaring, taking an uninterrupted nap, holding my children when they sleep, crawling into bed at the end of the day with my husband and soaking up the quiet, digging into God’s Word when my soul is empty.